Some interesting project results from the Tex-Fab competition.

Tex-Fab Results

Happy Friday.

MS



vector_field

Colleague Marc Syp has been working on a real time space planning tool using Spring Dynamics in Grasshopper. I had the privilege to have a cameo as well. Check it out after Marc’s description below.

This is a preview of a parametric conceptual design tool for architectural practice that I have been developing at NBBJ. I wanted to develop a system that allows designers to quickly organize and understand complex architectural programmes in three dimensions.

It is an advancement of the traditional bubble diagram; it solves adjacency requirements automatically and suggests planimetric and sectional relationships. The resulting diagrams are not formal solutions; they are simply organizational diagrams with solved adjacencies and accurate required areas. The diagrams are raw materials, meant to be manipulated sculpturally, or even squeezed into a formal container.

Technical Information
The tool was created in the Grasshopper plug-in for Rhino. Custom components, written in VB.NET, read programme data directly from Excel into Grasshopper. The tool uses the Kangaroo engine for realtime spring dynamics simulation.

Vimeo Link in HD

MS

Recently, friends at Studio Mode co- hosted a workshop with Tietz-Baccon entitled Material Intelligence. The week-long workshop capitalized on the momentum of hands-on material research through the creation of informal organizational strategies, subsequent prototypes and arriving finally at aggregate topological manifestations. Iterative testing frameworks were developed in Grasshopper and realized as tangible artifacts in prototype. Participants in the workshop not only benefited from intensive work sessions and collaborations, but also from the availability and use of digital fabrication tools, namely, a CNC 3-Axis Mill and CNC High-Force Cutter. A reception capped the event where the resultant aggregations were on display.

Studio Mode/modeLab is a Brooklyn-based design studio and research collective founded by Ronnie Parsons and Gil Akos. As a studio committed to design as a form of applied research, Mode engages in practices that have a requisite and deep connection to material and the processes by which it is formed and informed.

TIETZ-BACCON is an office for Architectural Design & Digital Fabrication established in 2007 by a core group of Architects/Designers who teamed-up at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Armed with diverse skills and a deep passion for making, our office approaches each project with ambitious innovation and detailed rigor.

Photos and Workshop descriptions after the jump…

MS

Material Intelligence was a one-week intensive design and prototyping workshop held in New York City during the week of August 16-20.

Brief:

The relationship between the designed object and the forces surrounding that object are always present, perceivable, and tactile. These forces span, among others, material, fabrication, economic, cultural, as well as political domains. In this manner, the object can be thought of as simultaneously existing within a charged field of pressures while adding its own charge back into the field. Contemporary tools (digital fabrication) and technology (associative environments) provide a strategic means for navigating the multitude of forces at play, while the prototype serves as the activating link between material research and design innovation.

Methodology:

This workshop progressed through a series of focused strategies beginning with material testing, followed by the development of prototypes, and arriving at aggregations of a single topological type. Each prototype was created by simple operations, undertaken through a specific disposition, and evaluated for performative potentials. All assemblies were designed in an associative environment (Grasshopper) and iteratively tested utilizing digital fabrication equipment (CNC 3-Axis Mill and CNC High-Force Cutter). The workshop concluded with a reception that exhibited design prototypes and full scale assemblies built by participants over the course of five days.

Material Intelligence was conceived through a collaboration between Studio Mode/modeLab and Tietz-Baccon. More details and images can be found at the following links:

http://materialintelligence.nu

http://studiomode.nu/
http://www.tietz-baccon.com/

flickr set 01

flickr set 02

Engaging the right side of the brain is a liberating exercise, except most times it isn’t something we consciously do. Right-brained thinking is interesting in the sense that it is so unlike its counterpart, aka left-brained thinking, in that there isn’t necessarily work involved in getting from point A to point B. There isn’t an “I get it” or “I don’t get it”, but simply a range/depth of appreciation.

I think we would all be surprised at just how attune to visual phenomena we really are, and how much we can process simply by looking at an object, a space, a face, or an image.

I say that relevant to this project, only because I started with trying to indulge a right-brained urge, and ended up getting there in a pretty linear fashion.

Working on a project in Dubai, our project team found out that a good portion of the masonry in the city is actually cut and hewn coral deposits. Its combination of mass and porosity, as well as availability, had obvious benefits given the climate and region. Though the project pursued another direction, I kept finding new things relative to color, growth patterns, etc.

A project emerged simply by trying to follow the underlying geometric logic of a species of coral whose septa (walls) fuse together from polyp to polyp.  Simplicity follows two tracks; a simple thing + complex technique, or a simple technique to get a complex thing.

This employs the latter.

I’ll probably post a more detailed description on my website shortly.

MS

MS

More to follow…

MS

A really great site for information and tutorials by David Fano at SHoP Architects. Focus is meant to be a source of information for the integration of design and technology. The ambition of Design Reform is to publish tutorials and explorations in parametric modeling with softwares such 3ds Max, Revit, Maya, and Rhino.

David’s focus is developing technology strategies on various projects, primarily with parametric systems and BIM implementation. He explores BIM in the schematic and pre-schematic design phases, as well as interoperability with other programs.

Design ReForm

David Fano

Happy Modeling

MS

Image copyright NBBJ, LLC  2007

MS